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Bert Sweetman,
PE, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the
Department of Maritime Systems Engineering in
Galveston, and is an
Assistant Professor in Civil Structural Engineering
in College Station. He
joined TAMUG in January 2003. He holds a Ph.D. from
Stanford University in Civil Structural Engineering,
a Master of Engineering from Texas A&M in
Ocean Engineering and a Bachelor of Science in
Engineering from the University of Michigan in Naval
Architecture and Marine Engineering. Professor
Sweetman is a licensed
Professional Engineer in Texas, with ten years of
engineering experience in Mobil Oil’s central
engineering division. His industry experience ranges from
long-term research to management of design and construction
projects.
Industrial
research initiatives included development and
evaluation of novel floating production concepts
(including spars, FPSO’s and TLP’s), station-keeping
methodologies, and development of software tools for
engineering applications. Project management
responsibilities included schedule and cost
estimating for very large offshore projects and
included direct responsibility for construction of
an office building and for construction of the
marine parts of a floating production and storage
vessel. He holds patents on fairings for marine
risers, a novel floating barge-platform and its
method of assembly, and served on the
American Petroleum Institute’s committee to develop
the API guidelines for floating production.
Professor Sweetman's current research is on
development of new methods to apply random vibration
theory to better understand vortex induced vibration
of marine risers and to develop new structural
health monitoring methodologies. He also
applies advanced statistical methods to better
understand irregular environmental
loading on wind turbine support structures.
Generally, his interests lie in the areas of random
processes and in statistical prediction of extreme
values in non-linear dynamic systems subject to
these random processes.
He has published numerous journal and conference
papers in the areas of air-gap analysis of floating
structures, wave-structure interaction, and
second-order random wave propagation. He
presently overseas maintenance and development of
the software tools originally produced within the
(now defunct) offshore part of the Reliability of
Marine Structures research group at Stanford
University.
Professor Sweetman’s teaching interests include
engineering statics and particle dynamics, in which
the ENGR-221 class recently completed a competition
to test towers made of uncooked spaghetti and epoxy
(See photos of competition
here).
Additional teaching interests include engineering
statistics, structural steel design and the Senior
capstone design course in offshore structures.
Professor Sweetman holds joint appointments with
Texas A&M at College Station in Civil Engineering
and in Ocean Engineering. His research is presently
funded by two grants from the National Science
Foundation division of Civil and Mechanical Systems:
Sensors: Statistical Algorithm Development for
Distributed Sensor Networks with Application to
Structural Health Monitoring and State Assessment
(2004 - 2007), and CAREER: Irregular Environmental
Loading and Response of Offshore Structures. (2005 -
2010). He presently supervises Doctoral candidate,
M. K. Choi, who is developing advanced statistical
methods with application to vortex induced
vibrations of marine drilling risers and Doctoral
student Mahdi Karimi, who is developing a numerical
model for floating offshore wind turbines. He is also
a
committee member for one Master's student in
Aerospace Engineering.
Links
www.rms-group.org
Dr. Sweetman's web page in College Station
Publications
Mittendorf, Kim,
Sweetman, Bert and Zielke, Werner. ``Wave
Climate Hindcast for the Design of Offshore Wind
Energy Structures in the German Bight"
International Journal of Ecology & Development,
IJED Special Issue on the Coastal Environment.
2007.
Available Formats:
PDF
Sweetman, Bert and
Choi, Myoungkeun ``The Modal Distribution Method
for Statistical Analysis of Measured Vibrational
Acceleration Data" ASCE Journal of Engineering
Mechanics. Submitted for Review June 2006.
Available Formats:
PDF
Postscript
Sweetman, Bert and
Choi, Myoungkeun ``The Modal Distribution
Method: A New Statistical Algorithm for
Analyzing Measured Data" Proceedings of SPIE,
Volume 6174, Page 61742H-1, San Diego,
California, USA, February-March 2006.
Available Formats:
PDF
Choi, MyoungKeun,
Sweetman, Bert ``Prediction and Application of
wave kinematics for near-shore structures
subject to irregular seas with comparison to
measured field data" SNAK Conference, Volume 40
Number 2, Seoul, Korea, May 2005.
Available Formats:
PDF
Sweetman, Bert
``Practical Airgap Prediction for Offshore
Structures." ASME Journal of Offshore Mechanics
and Arctic Engineering, Volume 126, Issue 2,
Pages 147-155, May 2004.
Available Formats (final MS):
Postscript
PDF
Author Proof (PDF)
Sweetman, Bert,
Winterstein, Steven R. ``Non-Gaussian Airgap
Response Models for Floating Structures" ASCE
Journal of Engineering Mechanics, March 2003,
Volume 129, Issue 3, Pages 302-309
Available Formats:
Postscript
PDF
Sweetman, Bert,
Winterstein, Steven R., and Meling, Trond Stokka
``Airgap Prediction from Second-Order
Diffraction and Stokes Theory" International
Journal of Offshore and Polar Engineering,
Volume 12, Number 3, September 2002
Available Formats:
Postscript
PDF
Sweetman, Bert,
Winterstein, Steven R., and Cornell, C. Allin
``Air Gap Analysis of Floating Structures:
First- and Second-Order Transfer Functions from
System Identification" Elsevier Journal of
Applied Ocean Research Volume 24, Issue 2, April
2002, Pages 107-118
Available Formats:
PDF
Winterstein,
Steven R., and Sweetman, Bert ``Air Gap Response
of Floating Structures: Statistical Predictions
vs Observed Behavior" Journal of Offshore
Mechanics and Arctic Engineering, Vol 123, Page
118-123, August 2001.
Available Formats:
Postscript
PDF
Manuel, Lance,
Sweetman, Bert, and Winterstein, Steven R.,
``Analytical Predictions of the Air Gap Response
of Floating Structures," Journal of Offshore
Mechanics and Arctic Engineering, Vol 123, Page
112-117, August 2001.
Available Formats:
PDF
Postscript
Word
Sweetman, Bert,
Winterstein, Steven R., Meling, Trond Stokka,
and Birknes, Joern ``Airgap Prediction: Use of
Second-Order Diffraction and Multi-Column
Models" ISOPE 2001, Paper No. 2001-IL-13,
Stavanger, Norway, June 17-22, 2001
Available Formats:
Postscript
PDF
Winterstein,
Steven R., Sweetman, Bert and Jha, Alok
``Spatial Prediction of Nonlinear Random Ocean
Waves: Identification of Gaussian and
Non-Gaussian Contributions" 8'th Annual ASCE
Conference on Probablistic Mechanics and
Structural Reliability, July 2000 (PMC2000-340)
Available Formats:
Postscript
PDF
Sweetman, Bert
and Winterstein, Steven R. ``Non-Gaussian Air
Gap Response Models for Floating Structures"
Oral Presentation Only, OMAE 2000, Paper No.
OMAE ETCE/OMAE2000-6144, New Orleans, Louisiana,
February, 2000
Available Formats:
Postscript
PDF
Winterstein,
Steven R., and Sweetman, Bert ``Air Gap Response
of Floating Structures: Statistical Predictions
vs Observed Behavior" Proceedings of OMAE 99,
Paper No. OMAE 99-6042, St. John's Newfoundland,
July 1999
Available Formats:
Postscript
PDF
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